


no one ever meant it, like that

by Elzie (gallaxygay)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Langst, M/M, Post-Season/Series 06, klangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-06-11 04:09:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15307191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallaxygay/pseuds/Elzie
Summary: everything is different now and keith just can't understand.(sometimes, wars break people like that)





	1. and it's so fucking bleak

Lance says, "Hey." 

"It's been a while," responds Keith. 

"Yeah." Lance rubs his eyes. Keith can't help but to feel like he's intruding. 

-

At dinner Pidge and Hunk argue. 

It gets nasty quick. Pidge doesn't parse her words and Hunk doesn't lie and neither pull their punches while fighting so fiercely.

Sometimes Keith forgets that the Garrison was a school for the brightest and best students, and that even though Pidge and Hunk like to fuck around, there isn't anything funny about two of the smartest people on the team trying their best to hurt each other. 

Keith forces himself to breathe through the worst of it, despite the tension that coats his tongue and throat like wax. And though he's learnt to breathe with heavy lungs, Keith feels himself spiraling. 

He sucks in a breath. Exhales. Repeats. 

But perhaps Pidge never learnt to breathe while drowning in tension because her face turns an ugly red while she's spitting knives at Hunk. And Keith can't remember if he's ever seen Hunk so angry - but a pang of fear shoots through his chest when Hunk finally starts to yell. 

Allura puts her head in her hands. Keith wonders if Alteans cry like humans do. 

Pidge says something that should be unforgivable. For a moment it looks like Hunk might cry. But then Hunk is gone, and Keith wonders how they might have fallen so far.  

-

Keith can't look at Shiro anymore. 

He's glad Shiro is back and Keith loves Shiro more than he loves most people but looking at Shiro is just so fucking bleak. 

Shiro has been a shell of a man since returning. It's difficult to reconcile his older brother and childhood hero with Shiro, who has white hair, black eye bags, and who sometimes has panic attacks at the dining room table. 

Perhaps that's unfair of Keith, to expect so much from someone more human than he is. But recognizing the unfairness doesn't stop the selfish, terrible part of Keith from not wanting to be around Shiro anymore - not wanting to see the cost that Shiro had to pay to return. 

It's a difficult situation. Keith sometimes feels sick when he thinks about it too hard. 

_(He sees Lance and Shiro sitting in front of the black lion, so late into the night it's morning. Shiro is watching Lance and Lance is watching the sky. Shiro says, "It's okay to be afraid, Lance."_

_Lance just shakes his head._

_It's the first time Keith has seen Lance in a week.)_

-

"How long was I gone?" asks Keith. 

Hunk looks up from his work on the blue lion just long enough to level Keith with a disgruntled stare. He's been trying to fix some of the wiring for days now. Keith doesn't know  _why_  the wiring is fucked up, just that it is, because no one ever talks about anything, anymore.

It's sweltering on this planet. Keith doesn't blame Hunk for being annoyed. 

Two minutes later Hunk climbs down, welder still in hand. He squints at Keith. Says, "You really wanna know that?" 

Keith shrugs. The concern in Hunk's gaze makes him feel like crying, almost. He says, "Everything is different now. I don't understand."

Hunk's expression softens. And then Keith is just moments away from crying - just moments away from breaking down on the spot and demanding to know everything - all the stories and mishaps and adventures and wins that Keith missed. He knows that Hunk knows, knows that Hunk probably knows where Shiro goes during the night and where the fuck Lance has been. He knows that Hunk would be honest. Hunk would be so fucking honest. 

There's a desperate part of Keith that needs to know everything that he missed, needs to be sure, because otherwise it feels like he's a stranger to the team - just a visitor passing through the castle. 

Hunks says, "Technology becomes obsolete overnight." 

"And?" 

"I don't know," he says, wiping sweat from his forehead absentmindedly. "You're not technology, you're a person." 

"Okay," says Keith, sure that he's not understanding. "I get it." 

Hunk snorts at that, already climbing back up on to the blue lion. "It was nine months," he says. "Try not to be a stranger." 

-

"Why're you up?" 

Lance shrugs. He says, "Did you like hot chocolate?" 

"It was alright," replies Keith. Shiro used to make the hot chocolate with water. He doesn't want to think about Shiro right now. 

"I found something like the chocolate powder on the last planet we visited, it just needs milk and to be heated up" says Lance. "Want some?" 

_(Keith wants a lot of things - mostly to know why the fuck Lance has all but disappeared.)_

"Sure," says Keith eventually. "That would be great."

_(He settles on a cup of hot chocolate.)_


	2. it's hard to know and harder to understand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an ending of sorts

Lance and Allura do not fight out loud. 

Keith watches the two play a terrible game of shorter and shorter words, falling short of terribly cruel but fighting in implicits nevertheless. He doesn't quite think that they'll ever reach the point of shouting, if just for the fact that Lance makes a habit of being child-friendly, and how Allura will clench her fists and tighten her lips before ever resorting to screaming insults and arguments. It happens during team meetings. It's never very friendly. 

Allura snaps, "Not now, Lance." 

"This is a stupid plan," says Lance after a moment. "I don't understand why we're pretending like it's not." 

He leaves. 

(Sometimes Keith wishes that Lance and Allura would put down their formalities and argue like normal people. It's probably past time.)

-

Lance smiles charmingly at the Princess. He says, "It's always a pleasure."

The King frowns. The Queen's eyebrow twitches. 

Shiro says, "Excuse him-"

"It's quite alright," says the Queen. "Your blue paladin is awfully charming." 

Allura smiles tightly. This is an important meeting. 

The King concedes, saying, "The Queen is always right."  

-

They lose. 

The realization dawns on Shiro's face just two moments after Lance gets shot in the stomach. Hunk is there to catch Lance as he falls, swinging his body up on to his shoulders before running back. 

Lance getting shot isn't an uncommon occurrence. Keith feels bad all the same. 

-

The video logs are uncomfortable at best. 

It's called: 45013294. From a time before the first paladins were truly paladins, just kids with crowns. Keith tries his best not to feel like just by virtue of being a paladin he's fulfilling a pre-made destiny - one to which there isn't any escape and one without any other options. 

He thinks of Zarkon. 

Keith tries his best and ultimately fails. 

_Alfor laughs at something that happens before the start of the video log. He says, "You'll have a queen one day, won't you?"_

_"I will," Zarkon doesn't share Alfor's mirth. He doesn't look angry. "She'll be mine."_

_A beat of silence passes._

_"And if she isn't?" presses Alfor. "If she decides not to be yours one day?"  
_

_Zarkon's mouth settles into a line. He says, "I think I'll kill her."_

_"You'll kill her?' asks Alfor._

_Zarkon blinks. It's uncanny. He says, "Yes. And it will be because I love her."_

Keith turns the video off. 

-

Keith catches Lance the second time he falls, this time, out of the healing pod. 

Lance has delicate fingers and eyes the same colour as the shallow parts of the ocean and his fingers and eyes grip Keith like he's dying. Perhaps the memory of bleeding out in the yellow lion is still fresh in Lance's mind or perhaps dying and being held by Keith are forever intertwined because, for a moment, Lance looks scared. 

He gasps, a hand shooting down to his stomach. Lance's eyes dart around the room before settling on Keith's face. 

Keith blurts out, "I'm sorry." 

Lance blinks. Doesn't let go of Keith. 

"We could have listened," says Keith. "We really could have listened." 

Lance blinks again. He says, "You don't have to be sorry," then, "are you hungry?" 

"Sure," says Keith. "Yeah, I'm hungry." 

-

Keith learns that Lance learnt to cook from his grandmother. Lance offers the information with a cheeky smile and a pink and green dish, which he promises tastes better than it looks, saying something about how Hunk had given it the all clear. 

"I think that I should have been cooking for you," says Keith with a small laugh. "Since you were the one who was shot." 

That causes Lance to laugh. He says, "I don't think so, Keith." 

-

Pidge is working on Shiro's arm when Keith finally catches her alone. 

She's sitting in her room and surrounded by garbage. He's briefly caught off guard with the fond half-thought that the mess would absolutely destroy Lance, that he'd need to clean up all the water packets and forgotten pieces of forgotten ideas. Keith finds himself thinking that although it's a mess and although Pidge could probably do with a broom, that she's made a small corner of the castle into a home. 

He sits on her bed. Pidge sits at her desk. 

Keith doesn't know how much time passes before Pidge looks up, not facing Keith. She says, "Are you gay?"

"Yeah," he says.

"Lance?" she says. 

Keith shrugs, before realizing that Pidge wouldn't be able to see. He says, "I think." 

Pidge sets down her tools. 

She says, "You should probably talk to Shiro. I think he misses you." 

-

The Queen smiles benignly at Allura before saying, "Princess, you and your paladins have been extraordinary." 

The King nods. Smiles too. 

"You have our support," says the Princess. "Paladins who play with children and cook with local families - you have well convinced us of your cause." 

Keith thinks they are talking about Lance. He thinks and knows because Lance makes a habit of avoiding the castle and its paladins. 

-

Keith finds it doesn't matter that Shiro is tired and broken when his head is buried in Shiro's chest, and tears blur his vision so much that Shiro is just Shiro, the same as he was all those years ago. 

He tells Shiro that he loves him and that he's sorry for leaving and even sorrier for avoiding his big brother. He tells Shiro that this has all been too much and that he doesn't understand even half of what is going on - that he wants to be friends with Hunk again and that he worries about Pidge. He cries about everything. Cries for the nine months that he lost with his family. 

Keith tells Shiro that Lance confuses him - with watery eyes and trembling lips. 

And Shiro looks uncomfortable. And Shiro says that Lance has gone through a lot. 

-

It's video log 1036784855. 

Shiro's clone is cruel. It yells at Lance and that's enough for Keith to understand. 

-

Lance doesn't say anything, just shifts over so that there's space for another person in his bed. 

His room is monumentally different from Pidge's room - with a sort of crisp cleanliness that speaks wonders about the Garrison's training, and more about how little time Lance spends in his room. His desk has a wooden box, which Keith can't see very well in the dark, but Keith knows that the box has little trinkets - rocks and necklaces and bracelets - from different planets. 

"I feel like I don't know you," admits Keith. "I can't understand you at all." 

Lance turns over, and his hair is curly. His hands find Keith's shirt, absentmindedly rubbing the fabric between his fingers. And then Lance laughs. He says, "I don't know if I've told you - don't know if I've told anyone - but while you were gone I died. Allura knows because she brought me back, and she knows because I died defending her and Blue."

Keith feels his stomach drop. 

"That's a secret for you," whispers Lance. "I think that I haven't been dealing with it well, but I want you to know me." 

Lance's quiet honesty leaves Keith breathless. Keith says, "I want to know you too." 

"Okay," says Lance. "We can do this. We're the defenders of the universe."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading !! hope you enjoyed the run on sentences sldkjfkgsklfj
> 
> it means the world to me when you comment and leave kudos, so let me know what you think, i'll always respond :))
> 
> my tumblr is @lancelovely, if you've got ideas or comments feel free to stop on by

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading !!!!!
> 
> if you liked it, leave me a comment and let me know what you thought of it :)
> 
> (slkdjlkajfds i realize that this a little fuckin uhhhhhh bleak but comments mean a ton and i think i like this fic - might like it enough for another chapter someday)


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